(Original post by Agrippa)
The argument based on this picture is only valid if you assume that everyone is being paid a fair wage for their work. It would be much more instructive for the blue circles to represent proportion of national income, rather than population.

We are a neoliberal country (With some corporatist elements) with a largely unregulated free market. If one follows the rationale behind this precedent for the free and open market, then everybody is, infact, paid a 'fair' wage for their work based on the objective forces of the supply/demand mechanism.

(Original post by Dalek1099)
I think the problem is that the government doesn't allow a percentage increase of tax after 50%,meaning that people have millions and billions of pounds and noone should be allowed to hold that much power or money.

Says who?

Why does your subjective desire deserve to have any effect on somebody elses personal utility?

(Original post by Dalek1099)
I say so and I do feel we should introduce maximum wages(£100,000 a year) and maximum money in bank accounts(£1million)

At first I always thought you were just a confused child. Now you have given me enough reason to believe you're a troll.
Please give me logical and viable reasoning for that rubbish you have just proposed.

The argument that the rich use less services so should therefore pay less tax is a foolish and wholly untrue line of argument to pursue. They are well off precisely because they live in a stable democracy, take those two things away and their wealth can evaporate at the hands of a mob or the whym of a dictator. At the very base level taxation is there to pay to keep the state stable, and the rich literally have the most to lose whether that instability might be in the form of civil unrest or market instability, you need only look at the effects that absent government involvement had on loss of personal wealth in 1929...

(Original post by doggyfizzel)
You system sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare, which is inevitably going to lead to tax avoidance and system abuse. If you are going for fairness why not just have a comply communist esque system. Why not just take everything and give back X amount, and everyone can access the exact same services. That sound pretty much like what you are describing. If that were the case how many City trader do you think would get up for work? None, they would all go an get an equally mind numbing job at Asda. Why would I try to sell this deal to a client, if I get a promotion I'm still going to lose it to this fairness criteria. You need a system which promotes economic output and punishes inefficiency, at all levels. Wage imbalances would be better addressed within a company. You have to remember massive wage imbalances do not benefit a company and its profits either. You can regulate that at company level not at some point down the line.

You can separate work and taxation as they work on different basis, they are connected but it doesn't mean the same principles apply. The welfare state is a socialist system and works on socialist principles. The City (one of the largest tax generators) does not work on socialist principles, its capitalist and works on capitalist principles. To think you could apply the same logic when governing the two is absurd, they have different driving factors and different responsibilities.

You seem to be suggesting correcting market failure as an economic term is the same as complete fairness. Which it is not. You are also presenting my argument as the one you would like me to be arguing. I never even hinted the government should do nothing or said a complete free market is preferable. I'm simply saying the current system we have is not only unfair on certain citizens, but its not efficient at all. It benefits no one. Rather than address inefficiencies in the NHS and MoD, we can simply raising the tax on the rich. This in no way addresses people in society getting a raw deal, neither does it solve the actual problem. The problem keeps growing, the services don't improve, and you place more and more responsibility, and reliance might I add, on the most mobile group.

My point here is clearly that a tax system is better than other the other non-voluntary alternatives of achieving fairness. I wasn't actually proposing a system.

I would question your distinction between "socialist" and "capitalist" in this context. The provision of, say, healthcare by the state is clearly socialist in its method (state ownership of the means of production) but its aim is simply to correct a problem in a capitalist system. When it comes to state provision of services such as the NHS and defence, obviously we should provide them as efficiently as possible but that's not to say these may still need to increase funding. The City also has some of its problems corrected, whether though differing tax arrangements such as those for interest accrued by banks or through regulations such as Basel III.

The ultimate question regarding the City is twofold. Are bankers paid more than they deserve for their work? I might argue yes. If we attempt to correct this, will banks become noticeably less efficient? Actually, I think not. Sure, if you reduce a £2m salary down to £20,000, but the correction needn't be that extreme. There is no reason why the next generation of bankers should come to expect such high salaries. They can be high, by all means, but some of the rewards are completely disproportionate. If banking is still one of the best paid jobs, people will still go into it and "get up for work in the morning". In fact, lowering wages for bankers could both encourage less risky activity as well as encouraging those people who want those disproportionate riches into other activities that might serve the country better, such as technology entrepreneurship.

(Original post by Mendeleev's Table)
At first I always thought you were just a confused child. Now you have given me enough reason to believe you're a troll.
Please give me logical and viable reasoning for that rubbish you have just proposed.

How dare you class my moralistic idea as a troll?The extra money could be given to the government to help people who haven't got enough money-the rich clearly have and the money could also be given to charities like Oxfam and save thousands of lives-what I declared could save the government billions of money to spend elsewhere.
To want more than the money I suggested is simply greed.

(Original post by Ocassus)
We are a neoliberal country (With some corporatist elements) with a largely unregulated free market. If one follows the rationale behind this precedent for the free and open market, then everybody is, infact, paid a 'fair' wage for their work based on the objective forces of the supply/demand mechanism.

Why don't we have a completely free economy then? No NHS, no publicly funded schools, no welfare system?

Your argument seems to be "wages are fair because they are the wages given by the system". Obviously an assumption that needs to be made is that the system is fair. It may be the best for a lot of things (like productive efficiency) but that is not the only worthy goal of society.

I'll start of by saying that economically I tend to be more conservative, but socially more liberal.

I definitely believe a progressive tax system is the right way to go, but only when the money being taken in tax is to fund government programmes (NHS, education etc...) that help everyone and make quality of life better (and do help the poorest in society). When it turns into "they have too much money, let's take some away," I don't think that's right. Ideally taxes should be low for everyone (progressive but low) but we don't live in an ideal world.

I think currently everyone pays a bit too much tax, and that includes the rich. 40% and 45% is actually a really big proportion when you think about it. So again, ideally, lower taxes all around.
What I think is unfair is that the current tax system does not discriminate between someone earning £152000 and £4000000. There's actually a huge difference between those, but in the eyes of tax law they're the same. Someone earning the latter amount is definitely more likely to take steps to evade/avoid paying tax than someone earning the former amount. I know to someone earning £30,000 they both earn stupid amounts of money, but that doesn't change the fact that there's a huge difference.

In the current situation, I think the rich are taxed the right amount. But once we get back to normal, healthy growth, tax cuts all round please!

Taxing the rich should not be about taking their money away because they have too much, it should be about taking some of their money in order to help the poorest and most disadvantaged in society.

(Original post by Dalek1099)
How dare you class my moralistic idea as a troll?The extra money could be given to the government to help people who haven't got enough money-the rich clearly have and the money could also be given to charities like Oxfam and save thousands of lives-what I declared could save the government billions of money to spend elsewhere.
To want more than the money I suggested is simply greed.

Good luck collecting that when there is nobody to collect it from.

I doubt it is possible to be this stupid, so for your sake, I would rather be a troll.

(Original post by Dalek1099)
I say so and I do feel we should introduce maximum wages(£100,000 a year) and maximum money in bank accounts(£1million)

average for a couple with one child is £40,000 and family's on this STRUGGLE to make ends meet.

Our income is around the number you suggested. take away tax we get closer to £50,000. minus mortgage repayments and bills closer to £20,000, minus food £18,000. more like £15,000 when you've got through insurance and council tax. We have to pay for my little brothers school bus so that's another £3000 so now we're at £12,000. so that's £1,000 a month or £250 a week. And there are five of us so if we were going to split that money equally that's £50 a week per person. Someone on the dole would get more so is this really a 'ridiculous' amount of money? really?

(Original post by Agrippa)
Why don't we have a completely free economy then? No NHS, no publicly funded schools, no welfare system?

Your argument seems to be "wages are fair because they are the wages given by the system". Obviously an assumption that needs to be made is that the system is fair. It may be the best for a lot of things (like productive efficiency) but that is not the only worthy goal of society.

Notice the word 'neoliberal'? Might want to pay attention to its meaning.

My 'argument' is that atleast unde a system by the free market is objective.

(Original post by Agrippa)
I would question your distinction between "socialist" and "capitalist" in this context. The provision of, say, healthcare by the state is clearly socialist in its method (state ownership of the means of production) but its aim is simply to correct a problem in a capitalist system. When it comes to state provision of services such as the NHS and defence, obviously we should provide them as efficiently as possible but that's not to say these may still need to increase funding. The City also has some of its problems corrected, whether though differing tax arrangements such as those for interest accrued by banks or through regulations such as Basel III.

Its not a failure of the capitalist system. Its to ensure people everybody has access to healthcare. That's not a failure, its purely about access. I'm not saying they don't need increased funding, I'm saying it dangerous to the rich as solution to this, they aren't a bottomless pit of cash which we can use to correct all our problems.

The ultimate question regarding the City is twofold. Are bankers paid more than they deserve for their work? I might argue yes. If we attempt to correct this, will banks become noticeably less efficient? Actually, I think not. Sure, if you reduce a £2m salary down to £20,000, but the correction needn't be that extreme. There is no reason why the next generation of bankers should come to expect such high salaries. They can be high, by all means, but some of the rewards are completely disproportionate. If banking is still one of the best paid jobs, people will still go into it and "get up for work in the morning". In fact, lowering wages for bankers could both encourage less risky activity as well as encouraging those people who want those disproportionate riches into other activities that might serve the country better, such as technology entrepreneurship.

They may not become noticeable less efficient but if we enforce these changes, who's to say they stay here in London, plenty of Hedge funds have already moved to tax havens. Banks operate here because it is currently favourable for them to do so. 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing. Bankers aren't paid more than they deserve, thats why most of the time banks are profitable. The issue is when there is a disconnect between performance and pay. Banks paying bonuses to people who have clearly not performed well.

(Original post by Astronomical)
Why should people whose families have worked hard for generations and amassed a lot of wealth have to pay for those families who have been too lazy to do so?

Wait, so you're not even arguing that the individuals worked, merely that their families did and that somehow that means they deserve it through the huge skill of being born into a rich family?

And once more in this thread, I see these same naive/idiotic (not sure which, it probably changes from person to person) argument that's in every thread about tax. It basically goes:

'The rich shouldn't pay tax because they've earned their money. You can't question that they've earned their money.They MUST have done, otherwise they wouldn't be rich. All rich people always totally earned all their money, guaranteed.'